Once invaluable, research chimps now devalued

Decision to retire animals from Bastrop research center brings up concerns

Rachel Haller, a chimpanzee trainer, gives a signal for Doda to get ready for a treatment for dermatitis at the Keeling Center in Bastrop.

Rachel Haller, a chimpanzee trainer, gives a signal for Doda to get ready for a treatment for dermatitis at the Keeling Center in Bastrop.

Photo: Melissa Phillip, Staff

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A chimpanzee catches a piece of cabbage at the Keeling Center earlier this month. Staff members who care for the animals believe the chimps should not be split up and moved to the Chimp Haven sanctuary in Louisiana. less

A chimpanzee catches a piece of cabbage at the Keeling Center earlier this month. Staff members who care for the animals believe the chimps should not be split up and moved to the Chimp Haven sanctuary in ... more

Photo: Melissa Phillip, Staff

Once invaluable, research chimps now devalued

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BASTROP - At the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center's animal research facility in this remote part of Central Texas, a team of veterinary technicians beckons three chimpanzees to the front of their huge dome cage.

Joey, first in line, checks out the diabetic lancet device the technician takes pains to show, then calmly extends his hand outside the cage, where a blood sample is extracted. The other chimps patiently wait their turn.

It's a common scene - veterinary care that also could be used as research - at the Michael E. Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research, which pioneered positive-reinforcement techniques that induce the chimpanzees to voluntarily participate in their care. It's also a scene whose future appears dim.

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The center's chimpanzee program, the federal government's second-largest, is on the chopping block following the National Institutes of Health's decision in late June to end most of its chimpanzee research.

'Very special animals'

The plan, for now, is to retire about 310 government-owned chimps to Chimp Haven, a federal sanctuary in Louisiana. The plan allows for the continued support of 50 research chimps, available under strict conditions for important medical studies that could be performed no other way, but even that limited role will be reassessed in five years.

"Chimpanzees are very special animals," said National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, noting their DNA is 98 percent identical to humans'. "Americans have benefited greatly from chimpanzees' service to biomedical research, but new scientific methods and technologies have rendered their use in research largely unnecessary."

Collins said the decision, long expected, will help usher in "a compassionate era" of biomedical research.

Famed chimp researcher Jane Goodall and animal rights groups hailed it as bringing the United States in line with other nations, and the scientific community acknowledged the time had come to end experimentation on our closest relatives. Critics of chimpanzee research cited reports of grim conditions at certain labs and a recent study showing chimpanzee symptoms similar to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder in humans.

The decision did not go down so well at the Keeling Center, home to 166 chimpanzees, behind only Alamogordo Primate Facility in New Mexico's 169. Some 50 staffers tend to the chimps at Keeling.

"It's somewhat demoralizing to staff to be portrayed as if they aren't providing high-quality care," says Abee, a veterinarian. "These are people who've dedicated their lives to this."

Launched in 1975

Located on 381 acres near Bastrop, Keeling launched in 1975, built by M.D. Anderson to support biomedical research and awarded a large federal grant to establish a chimpanzee research and rehabilitation center. The recipient of continuous federal funding since, it spends roughly $17,000 a year on each chimpanzee.

The chimps themselves are a motley crew. The initial population included former pets, castoffs from circuses and other entertainment sources, laboratory animals and others. They range in age from 11 to 51; child, parent and grandparent remain together in some cases. About 100 were born at Keeling, most during a period when the government encouraged breeding.

Such breeding, in the 1980s, owed to the belief that chimps would be great models for research into AIDS treatment and vaccines. The hope never panned out - the monkey and ape equivalent of HIV never developed into disease - and the idea was abandoned and the breeding stopped. (In 2009, a study upset the old wisdom, finding some chimpanzees in the wild were dying of an AIDS equivalent.)

Chimpanzees, initially used in spaceflight research, did prove valuable in hepatitis research, and Keeling chimpanzees contributed to this work. That research culminated in a vaccine for hepatitis B but none yet for hepatitis C, which may be the last battleground in chimpanzee research.

"We wouldn't have a vaccine for hepatitis B without chimpanzees," says Abee. "Our best hope for a hepatitis C vaccine is chimpanzees since there's no other animal model for it. If a loved one of yours is one of the 15,000 people in the United States who die annually of hepatitis C, the research might be more important to you."

Though a small percentage of Keeling's chimps at one point were infected with hepatitis C, Abee says the center's veterinary care involves issues of aging - arthritis, heart disease - not any effects of research. He said the chimps are the subjects only of studies observing their behavior.

The closest exception is acupuncture. Keeling's veterinarians perform acupuncture on arthritic chimps, therapy never before studied in the species and that the animals appreciate so much they do not require the sort of positive reinforcement they do for other needles. The relief they receive is the positive reinforcement, say staffers.

Corrals, geodesic domes

Keeling devotes 12 acres to its chimpanzee program. The main areas comprise 4,400-square-foot, open-air corrals and 24-foot-tall geodesic domes, both of which contain wood jungle gyms, complete with ropes and swings, and plenty of devices to forage for food. The idea at both is to simulate the chimps' behavior in the wild.

Abee says that if Keeling's chimpanzees are retired they should stay on site, not be transported to Louisiana. He contends that would be less expensive, provide the chimps a level of care not available at the sanctuary and - most importantly - be less stressful to the chimps, whose social groups likely would be dramatically disrupted in a move.

The notion is dismissed by leaders of the Humane Society, who pushed for retirement at the federal sanctuary.

"If the chimps are to be retired, a laboratory is not the place for that to happen," said Kathleen Conlee, the society's vice president for animal research. "The Keeling Center is not about retirement care. It's about biomedical care. The idea of retirement is chimps being able to climb trees and roam freely at a place entirely focused on their well-being."

Won't happen soon

The relocation won't happen anytime soon. National Institutes of Health officials acknowledge it will take time and money to expand Chimp Haven to accommodate 310 additional chimps. Details of the relocation plan still needed to be sorted out, including whose chimps will not be retired and whether to retire any on-site.

"It'll take years," said Jim Anderson, an agency program director. "There are a lot of options to be considered."

If Keeling's chimps are retired to Chimp Haven, Abee estimates it probably will result in a loss of about 50 employees, roughly a third of the center's staff. He said some might relocate to the sanctuary in Louisiana, but most are settled in Texas.

Still, life will go on at Keeling. The center boasts 1,000 rhesus monkeys, 530 squirrel monkeys, 350 owl monkeys, sheep, geese and mice. For now at least, the National Institutes of Health hasn't shown signs of retiring any of them.